So Confused - How do you hit your calorie target WITHOUT exceeding the macro limits?

You can change your macros to whatever you like...there's nothing special or magical about MFP's default macro ratios and there is no universally optimal macro ratio...and your macro ratios don't really matter for weight management. Macros can be important to physical performance, satiety, and to some extent body composition...but all of that is pretty individual. Doing a bunch of hand wringing over your macros is a waste of time and energy.

MFP has to have some default ratio as your macros are what make up your calories. 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate and protein...9 calories per gram of dietary fat.

But you don't have to make them limits.
Or you can make them minimum limits.
Or you can just treat them as rough guidelines to get reasonably close to, most of the time.

It's often not a great strategy to go out of your way to make a hard job even harder by adding rigid rules and restrictions with little or no benefit. Worth spending some time thinking how to make dieting easier.

Personally I preferred to treat both protein and fats as minimum goals which were perfectly fine to exceed (within my overall calorie limit) and carbs as the "filler" to take up the slack.
I also had zero reason to track both sugar and carbs (sugar is a subset of carbs).

jellybaby84 wrote: »

sijomial - thank you; that's a more reassuring way to look at it. I really don't want a diet controlled by numbers in too many ways. I get very easily obsessed (have a long history of eating disorders but am now probably too lax with what I eat and am at the top end of what is healthy for me or borderline overweight (not sure which and too scared to find out!) )

Thank you for the healthy fat suggestions. I'm sooooo fussy, that's the problem. Eggs would work. I eat a lot of babybel lights. I could buy the full fat versions. Same with yogurts - I get 0% fat ones but could switch. I don't like butters, oils, nuts or red meat (apart from ham). I'll start with full fat cheese and yogurt.

Would it help to consider that you don't have to be spot-on each and every day, but to try to be close to your goals, then averaging out where you want them over the week?

For most nutrients, it's not like they're instantly excreted if not needed in the moment. Full digestive transit can take 50+ hours (per research), plus the body has mechanisms for retaining some nutrients longer-term . . . humans are adaptive omnivores, with a genetic profile conditioned by a food-scarcity history to survive in a variety of conditions. We're lucky to live in a time when we can pursue optimization, but there's no need to do that to the point of obsession.

Over on some macros is fine (absent any medical condition dictating otherwise), if within calories, and as long as other essential macros aren't consistently low day after day. It's about balance, not a tortured, stressful exactitude.

It's probably obvious: I disagree with those who say macros are unimportant. They're not directly relevant to weight loss (can be a bit so indirectly via fatigue or appetite), but they do matter for body composition and general health. Even so, getting close to reasonable goals on average over time is going to be fine - stress is bad for people, too 😉, so no need to stress over this.

P.S. I agree with those suggesting you bring your fat intake up a bit given this particular day. We need some fat for cellular health, absorption of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K . . .), and hormonal balance. Our bodies can't manufacture it out of any other nutrients, so we need to eat some: Technically, in that sense, it's an "essential macronutrient". So is protein.

I'm another who sees the protein and fat as a minimum figure to aim for. The only number I really pay attention to is carbs, but that's because I'm diabetic. I also keep an eye on my fibre number to ensure I'm eating enough; apparently most people don't.

Full fat Babybel would give you another 3g of fat over the babybel light. I was going to add that they're more calories too, but you need more calories anyway. Look at other cheeses as well, for variety. A small amount of grated cheddar or thinly sliced Stilton on your potato would be good with your ham and side salad. Diced cheddar goes well with a chopped apple. Oatcakes go well with cheese and have some fat in them too.

You could also consider sprinkling chia seeds and/or mixed seeds into your yoghurt. That's my typical breakfast, along with two hard boiled eggs. 15g of chia seeds gives me 5g of fat and 19g of Tesco's 4-seed mix gives me 9g of fat, although that's also 175 calories just in seeds! However, that gave me 9g of fibre, of my 30g target.